A member of the KIA’s Women’s Armed Forces helps to lead basic military training at the army base outside of Laiza, Kachin State, Myanmar, May 13, 2013. Women in the army earn 10,000 Kyat per month (about 10 USD) and often once they have joined may only be discharged for the purpose of marriage.

The rebel controlled territory along the mountainous jungle road from Mai Ja Yang to Laiza where the government forces have been fighting the KIA in Kachin State, Myanmar, May 13, 2013. The back roads in Kachin’s border area with China are the only way for the KIA to access to the outside world, as they have been cut off from the rest of the country by the Burmese government forces.

Tears roll down a young woman’s face as she sits on her bed just after morning military training at the Kachin Independence Army's (KIA) 5th brigade headquarters outside of Laiza, Kachin State, Myanmar, May 21, 2013. For most of the women going through military training, this was their first experience away from their home and family.

Already wearing their uniforms two women reluctantly begin to wake up before dawn during their military training at the army base in Mai Ja Yang, Kachin State, Myanmar, May 31, 2013. The women were always expected to train alongside the men. Of the 215 soldiers completing the basic military training in Mai Ja Yang and Laiza, only 19 were women.

Women change into their uniforms in the room that 10 of them shared during their military training at the 3rd Brigade army base in Mai Ja Yang, Kachin State, Myanmar, May 30, 2013. While some of the women had joined out of their own interest in serving with the KIA, an equal number of women had been forcibly recruited.

After finishing morning training a young woman applies thanaka to her face inside the women’s room at the military base outside of Laiza, Kachin State, Myanmar, May 17, 2013. The 9 women shared an unlit room throughout the two-month training. Men and women as young as 16 are allowed to join the KIA. Men are expected to commit to the KIA for life.

Basic military at the KIA’s military base outside of Laiza, Kachin State, Myanmar, May 17, 2013. The women were strongly committed to the Kachin people and many said that they were not scared to risk their lives in the KIA’s struggle for autonomy.

Women march through the streets during their basic military training in the town of Ja Htu Kawng on the border of China and Kachin State, Myanmar, May 15, 2013. The government of Myanmar has banned UN agencies, international NGOs, and even foreigners from entering into KIA territory.

The women were given 15 minutes to wash themselves and their clothes in the river near the KIA’s military base outside of Laiza, Kachin State, Myanmar, May 17, 2013. They tried to cover themselves while bathing the best that they could as the men washed just upstream.

A KIA soldier looks across the river towards China from the military base outside of Laiza, Kachin State, Myanmar, May 20, 2013. While China has served as a lifeline for Kachin, it has also force thousands of Kachin refugees back into the midst of conflict in rebel controlled in Myanmar. According to UNHCR there are currently 96,000  IDPs in Kachin State, Myanmar.